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SARAH SIDDONS
By RUPERT SIDDONS (her great-great-grandson)
Non-Copyright.
"If you ask me what is a Queen, I should say 'Mrs. Siddons.' "-Tate Wilkinson.
the fifth .day of ]u1y,
ON
1755, a daughter was
born to Roger and Sarah Kemble, born in the smallest room of a humble inn, .The Shoulder of Mutton, Brecon, in South Wales. What person then could realise that this child, after going through many
Birthplace of hardships and humiliations Sarah Siddons, Brecon. would be acclaimed by the British public; as their greatest actress.
The Kembles in the reigns of the First and 'Second Charles were 'staunch Loyalists and devout members of tlie Churcli. Fatlier J"ohn Kemble, who was the great-great-granduncle of Mrs. Siddons, was a dearly beloved priest, who was mercilessly hanged for the Faith in Hereford in the year 1679 and was buried at Welsh Newton', to which place the Catholics pay a yearly pil­grimage. His kinsman, Captain Richard Kemble, saved the life of Charles II by giving him his horse' at the Battle of Worcester.
, The subsequent decline of the Kemble fortunes was no doubt the reason for their descendants being in humble circumstances, as the ultimately victorious Stuarts were not as generous as might have been expected in rewarding those who had suffered in their cause.
Roger Kemble, who owned a company of strolling players, was a good living man, dignified and with a sense of everything that was just. Although a strolling player, he was by no means an indifferent actor and, his company proved to be a good school for high Dramatic Art. The groundwork Sarah received in this company, together with the careful instruction from her mother in the art of clear delivery, bore fruit in later years.
It was the custom for strolling players to an­nounce their arrival in town and village by a procession and the beating of a drum. The youngest member of the company carried the drum on the head and when Sarah was old enough, she was given this duty to perform.
EARLY APPEARANCE AT BRECON. Two of the most beautiful counties in Britain are surely Breconshire and Herefordshire, and through these lovely parts would Sarah travel with her parents to perform in barns and small theatres. She appeared-~re the public at a very early age at Kington perhaps her first appearance) and an~e r y appearance took place at the old Brecon Theatre when she de­livered a fable, II The Boy and the Frogs," the audience at once taking the child to their hearts.
William Siddons~ who-was ultimately to become the husband of the Divine Sarah, was a member of the Kemble Company. He was born in Walsall and was Sarah's senior by eleven years and became engaged to her when she was sixteen years of age. Siddons was a handsome and
, distinguished looking man, but a very indifferent actor. Sarah's parents were against their daughter marrying a penniless actor and in favour of a Mr. Evans, Squire of Pennant, who had a fixed income of three hundred pounds a year. Siddons naturally resented this, bitterly com­plaining to Mr. and Mrs. Kemble; but instead of getting sympathy, he got his notice. Before leaving the company he was allowed a farewell benefit at which he delivered an entracte imprevu, the words having been written by the Rev. . Thomas Price, Vicar of Crickhowell. The dis­carded lover, thinking he was heing treated very shamefully, wished to give vent to his feelings which were expressed in the verses he declaimed-s­so he started :­
" Ye ladies of Brecon, whose hearts ever feel For'wrongs like to this I'm about to reveal: Excuse the first product, nor pass unregarded The complaints of poor Colin, a lover discarded.
The Breconians were highly amused at this and gave him loud applause, but not so highly amused was Mrs. Kemble, who gave him a box on the ears
1

SARAH SIDDONS
By RUPERT SIDDONS (her great-great-grandson)
Non-Copyright.
"If you ask me what is a Queen, I should say 'Mrs. Siddons.' "-Tate Wilkinson.
the fifth .day of ]u1y,
ON
1755, a daughter was
born to Roger and Sarah Kemble, born in the smallest room of a humble inn, .The Shoulder of Mutton, Brecon, in South Wales. What person then could realise that this child, after going through many
Birthplace of hardships and humiliations Sarah Siddons, Brecon. would be acclaimed by the British public; as their greatest actress.
The Kembles in the reigns of the First and 'Second Charles were 'staunch Loyalists and devout members of tlie Churcli. Fatlier J"ohn Kemble, who was the great-great-granduncle of Mrs. Siddons, was a dearly beloved priest, who was mercilessly hanged for the Faith in Hereford in the year 1679 and was buried at Welsh Newton', to which place the Catholics pay a yearly pil­grimage. His kinsman, Captain Richard Kemble, saved the life of Charles II by giving him his horse' at the Battle of Worcester.
, The subsequent decline of the Kemble fortunes was no doubt the reason for their descendants being in humble circumstances, as the ultimately victorious Stuarts were not as generous as might have been expected in rewarding those who had suffered in their cause.
Roger Kemble, who owned a company of strolling players, was a good living man, dignified and with a sense of everything that was just. Although a strolling player, he was by no means an indifferent actor and, his company proved to be a good school for high Dramatic Art. The groundwork Sarah received in this company, together with the careful instruction from her mother in the art of clear delivery, bore fruit in later years.
It was the custom for strolling players to an­nounce their arrival in town and village by a procession and the beating of a drum. The youngest member of the company carried the drum on the head and when Sarah was old enough, she was given this duty to perform.
EARLY APPEARANCE AT BRECON. Two of the most beautiful counties in Britain are surely Breconshire and Herefordshire, and through these lovely parts would Sarah travel with her parents to perform in barns and small theatres. She appeared-~re the public at a very early age at Kington perhaps her first appearance) and an~e r y appearance took place at the old Brecon Theatre when she de­livered a fable, II The Boy and the Frogs," the audience at once taking the child to their hearts.
William Siddons~ who-was ultimately to become the husband of the Divine Sarah, was a member of the Kemble Company. He was born in Walsall and was Sarah's senior by eleven years and became engaged to her when she was sixteen years of age. Siddons was a handsome and
, distinguished looking man, but a very indifferent actor. Sarah's parents were against their daughter marrying a penniless actor and in favour of a Mr. Evans, Squire of Pennant, who had a fixed income of three hundred pounds a year. Siddons naturally resented this, bitterly com­plaining to Mr. and Mrs. Kemble; but instead of getting sympathy, he got his notice. Before leaving the company he was allowed a farewell benefit at which he delivered an entracte imprevu, the words having been written by the Rev. . Thomas Price, Vicar of Crickhowell. The dis­carded lover, thinking he was heing treated very shamefully, wished to give vent to his feelings which were expressed in the verses he declaimed-s­so he started :­
" Ye ladies of Brecon, whose hearts ever feel For'wrongs like to this I'm about to reveal: Excuse the first product, nor pass unregarded The complaints of poor Colin, a lover discarded.
The Breconians were highly amused at this and gave him loud applause, but not so highly amused was Mrs. Kemble, who gave him a box on the ears
1